Meet the 2022 nRhythm Fellows
The nRhythm Fellows are a diverse community dedicated to bringing health to the world's systems and ushering in a regenerative future.
RALPH THORSTEN ARNOLD
Role: Visionary, ecological farmer, writer, analyst and consultant
Location: Allenford, ON, Canada
Thorsten received academic training in environmental engineering (BTU Cottbus) and in Earth Systems sciences at CvO Univ. Oldenburg, Germany, at the Institute for Chemistry and Biology of the sea (ICBM). He later pursued a dissertation in watershed sciences and agricultural economics (Univ. Hohenheim, Germany), specializing in integrated modelling and data analysis.
Thorsten currently works as food system advocate, analyst, and design consultant. He successfully founded the farmer-driven cooperative Eat Local Grey Bruce. He worked from angles of socio-economic-environmental impact assessments (e.g. Fresh City Farms), environmental monitoring on farms, business analysis for wholesaling meat (for Eat Local Grey Bruce and the Organic Council of Ontario), traceability in food chains, and a climate resilience assessment of farms (with EFAO and Arrell Institute, University of Guelph). Thorsten authors various professional articles (e.g. two front page articles in the US-based Growing for Markets on collaborative marketing, and on planning for climate resilience). He also worked with the Land & Leadership Initiative as food system expert.
Thorsten is a well-connected sustainable food and farming systems advocate. He is currently board member with the local National Farmers Union chapter and The Sustainability Project. Thorsten is past board member of the Organic Council of Ontario, he was “Strategic Initiatives Coordinator” at the Ecological Farmers of Ontario, presenter with the Local Farm & Food Cooperatives network, advisor to Sustain Ontario, contributor to the Organic Value Chain Round Table, and convenor or presenter at the Living Soil Symposium of Regeneration Canada and numerous other events. Thorsten also co-owns Persephone Market Garden, a mixed vegetable farm that markets directly to customers and to restaurants in the Owen Sound region.
Those who seek simplicity to manipulate and control the world often find things exceedingly complicated. Those who see complexity will usually be more cautious, less invasive, and nudge the system observantly in a caring manner. In my work, I seek interdependence when coordinating staff, respecting uniqueness in a nodal/distributed organizational structure.
When originally designing a project "Regenerate Grey Bruce - Toward a new Landscape Narrative", we mostly thought about the landscape. With better understanding of the holistic nature of landscape management, we increasingly see individual transformation as our goal - the stories we tell ourselves about our roles & responsibilities for this landscape. Rather than formulating landcover milestones, we now seek to foster (and measure!) personal transformation.
SUDARSHAN CHAUDHARY
Role: Founder Director, Spiral Farm House
Location: Rajbiraj, Nepal
I am Sudarshan Chaudhary, a Napali citizen with Tharu indigenous family profile. I have completed my post-graduation degree from Tribhuvan University in Management. After my post graduate degree, when I decided to come back to Farming my father and mom were not happy with me. They want to see me as a government officer. They have bitter experiences with farming, farmers never get a good income and always suffer from lack and poverty. So in my area, most youths are not interested in agriculture and leave villages and go to urban areas for a good income and luxurious life. When I started to do organic farming my father and mom didn't believe in it. They never imagined before that they could grow foods without the use of chemical fertilizer and pesticides. In the land where we are living now, my grandparents cut the forest and made it cultivated and they are doing everything organically and naturally in my grandfather's period. But in my father's time, our government showed chemical fertilizers and they started using chemicals for good production. But still, they didn’t get a good income.
Then I said let’s try our agriculture organically to my parents and I proved that without chemicals fertilizer and pesticides we can grow organic foods, which are healthier and more profitable for us. Now my father and mom believed in it and are now sharing it with other local farmers. It’s a big achievement for me and now they are helping me with farming. After my 8 years of Organic farming experience, I’m starting to share my knowledge with other fellow farmers and helping local farmers to help them switch towards sustainable farming at present.
There are about 90,000 farmers in Saptari. In the coming days, we are planning to help about 90,000 farmers of the Saptari district in order to switch Saptari to organic farming. Among the 90,000 farmers – about 50,000 of them are indigenous farmers.
For this, we are working on the transmission of documented knowledge about Biodynamic Organic Farming, regenerative farming and indigenous farming techniques system from peer-to-peer training. We have already organized many workshops in different parts of Nepal but now for peer-to-peer is effective education and the spread organic farming movement we strategically trained our first batch of our 8 indigenous trainee farmers. They have already switched their farm to an organic way and we also provide them compost kits and some financial support along with it. organic ways and indigenous farming techniques.
Our vision is to within 6 years make the whole saptari district as a fully organic district and create a food distribution cooperative to access big markets to increase farmers' livelihood.
New connections.
WILL DORMAN
Role: UK Sourcing Manager at Natoora, Finance Director at National Food Service London, Writer
Location: London, UK
I'm Will, and I'm passionate about being an active force for facilitating the transition to a regenerative food system that creates the space and conditions for all life to thrive. I envision a world founded on the principle of food sovereignty, animated by regenerative principles, and governed by a deep respect for the sacredness of all beings and things. I find that I have very few of the answers. I'm committed to a collaborative and representational approach to navigating out of petro-capitalist and extractive hegemony. On a less serious note, I love sports, and I'm always fulfilled doing physical activity, or reading a good book. I enjoy meditation and find that if my work doesn't feel purposeful, I can't motivate myself to do it at all. I want to be someone who brings harmony into the spaces he inhabits, and creates far more space than he occupies.
I'm still very new to the principles of regenerative design, and far more familiar with regenerative soil health practices. In my specific context, I feel that I am mostly bringing questions, and trying to invite people to consider how the things we are doing and the way we are doing them is often degenerative. I am trying to lean into a sense of community around regeneration and aspire to eventually be working with other people who share these principles and want to create organisations that deeply embody these principles.
I feel that at the moment I am most focused on Developmental. I find that the mechanistic thinking manifests in my life in the form of wanting to have total clarity on where I'm going and what exactly I'm trying to achieve. Ultimately this is a false sense of security. Rather than focusing on specific outcomes that measure 'success', I am learning to imagine what my life would need to look like in order to create the conditions for the things that I want to achieve. Doing this is requiring deep reflection on what my needs really are, and what I need to do in order to ensure that they are met.
CLAIRE EVERSON
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JESSICA GNAD
Role: Catalyst for change providing boots on the ground education for farmers and rancher to adopt soil health practices. Director of Marketing for PrairieFood | Content delivery for Soil Health U | Co-Founder and Executive Board Member of Great Plains Regeneration
Location: Manhattan, KS
For the past decade, I've had the honor to work alongside farmers and ranchers in the Great Plains to scale the adoption of Soil Health Practices to support Regenerative Agriculture. Through event production - both live and digitally - I've been able to aide the transfer of knowledge from experts in soil health (farmers, ranchers, researchers, etc.) to the masses to help shorten the adoption curve of agronomic change.
Having a lens of "systems-approach of living systems" has greatly helped me to solidify and streamline my work. Understanding how to embrace diversity (species of crops, types of knowledge, and people) has taught me to work more diligently on promoting LIFE!
I've gleaned many positive outcomes from this program but the most important is brining the other organizations that I work for into the mindset of Regenerative Design.
JOHN-MARK BRADLEY HACK
Role: Chief Strategist - guiding growth, internal culture development, external affairs, business development
Location: Lexington, Kentucky
John-Mark Hack is the Chief Strategy Officer for Thoroughbred, a design, engineering, and construction firm based in Lexington, Kentucky. His diverse career includes experience in government, business, academia, and the non-profit sector. Among other professional accomplishments, John-Mark led from the Kentucky Governor’s office the development and implementation of the Kentucky Agricultural Development Fund, a statewide investment program that worked with Kentucky farmers to minimize the state's economic dependence on tobacco. Over the 22-year life of the program, it has leveraged over $1.7 billion in public and private investment in new farm-based enterprises. John-Mark is a co-founder of Marksbury Farm Market, a processor and purveyor of grass-fed beef, pastured hogs, lamb and poultry. He is the incoming board chair of the Kentucky Association of Manufacturers, and the current board chair of Mission Behind Bars and Beyond, a nonprofit focused on facilitating successful re-entry of women and men leaving incarceration. John-Mark serves Georgetown College as an Adjunct Instructor in the Department of Sociology. He is the father of three adult children, including a critical care nurse, an attorney, and an actor/singer. John-Mark lives in Versailles, Kentucky, and is the grateful caretaker of dog Jenny and cat Barnabas.
Regenerative design is integrated to some degree into most every aspect of our business of design, engineering and construction. We are fully committed to the continuous improvement of our processes, and to helping educate our clients on the long-term advantages of regenerative design. The application of these principles in all our affairs has resulted in the development of our firm's core values of kindness, honesty, loyalty and creativity, terms that are not typical values descriptions of firms within our industry. We have recognized the inherent regenerative nature of these values, and are now working to implement them across every division, service line and relationship. Kindness produces kindness; honesty begets honesty; loyalty yields more loyalty; and all three contribute to a higher level of free creativity.
I made new connections with other members of the nRhythm family with whom I've enjoyed what is hopefully mutually beneficial ongoing communication. My colleagues within our firm were also highly receptive to a redefinition of our core values, mission and purpose that is clearly aligned with regenerative design principles. I also see broad application of these principles to society at large as certain forces feed the dishonest assessments of division. Regenerative design can help restore civil deliberation and provide constant reminders of our inherent interconnectedness.
SHERRY HESS
Role: Founder/Visionary The Flavor Remedy
Location: Highlands Ranch, CO, USA
Food and the curiosities of flavor are at the heart and center of what I bring to the world through The Flavor Remedy. I’ve traveled this lifetime as a gardener, a chef, a product developer, a restaurant manager and a lover of nature. Every milestone of health and happiness brings me to food and nature. To me, the two must be intrinsically synched. My work with The Flavor Remedy is designed to reconnect humanity to the Earth through the lens of flavor. When we can establish the truth of the flavor/nutrient connection, we as humans can design a more regenerative framework for flavor guiding us to health- for us and the planet.
Nodal. Nodal. Nodal. Did I say Nodal? ;) I imagine that as I continue the path of my work using regenerative principles, that each and every one of them will at some point become an ah-ha for me. For now at about the halfway point of our year of fellowship, it’s the Nodal principle that has become both a strengthening and relieving concept in my business development. As I envision what can emerge from connecting our taste buds to our health, I can easily become overwhelmed by the potential work that it would take to carry the message. Once I embraced the idea of nodal leadership (which I inherently see as directly connected to unique genius) I became not only relieved that I didn’t need to know everything, but also excited about the new thoughts, ideas and context that can be brought in through others experiences. I’m truly excited to see how The Flavor Remedy develops nodally over the next few years.
I believe one of the most prevalent emergent outcomes for me in my work with the nRhythym Fellowship and working within the Regenerative Design Labs is actually a seemingly ironic view that strength of self (or an individual’s genius) is meant to be embraced as a powerful contribution to a greater whole. The mindset shift of approaching a business or organization with an overarching vision that creates conditions for emergence, rather than structured goals before it even gets started has been a powerful impetus for the development of my organization. As a result of re-thinking business through this regenerative framework and being a contributing fellow, I have not only been able to feel hopeful and establish great connections for myself, but have also felt completely inspired by what I’m witnessing in others. It has been exciting to see so many different entities embracing and evolving their businesses to serve the greater whole.
DAVID HUGHES
Role: Husband/Father/President/Managing Principal/Electrical Engineer
Location: Denver, CO, United States
I straddle the two worlds of technical expertise and enlightened leadership with ease. As President and Managing Principal of BCER, I lead my team with honest service to others at the forefront, making the lives of both our clients and employees easier.
Over my 23 years at BCER Engineering, I have been part of our most notable projects. I continue to engage in our most complex projects, offering technical know-how that only comes with 34 years of experience, but more recently, I have spent my time fostering relationships that continually solidify my belief that engineering is an impactful way to improve communities. In all of my interactions, it’s easy to see that I am open-minded, persistent, and sincere. I am always striving to move forward personally and professionally and I am actively involved in community leadership and initiatives that give value and meaning to my work.
My impact is a true testament to BCER’s mission statement. “Believing that true and honest relationships are the key to happiness and success, BCER will strive toward developing that kind of relationship with all its clients and employees.”
I live and breath a work-life balance. You will find me working hard and playing hard with a bit of relaxation in between. Growing up in New England, I am a city boy, but you can find me enjoying my summers with my wife Alice and my two boys in Grand Lake since moving to Colorado. I start most of my days running.
As we ask ourselves the question: "How can our organization experience abundant, resilient, recurring outcomes far into the future?" we have taken baby steps over the years, knowing that a shift in thinking and perspective takes time. We first challenged ourselves with focusing on the health of individuals so that we could work on the health of the organization. How do we get to a balance between well-being, role, and genius, so that we can thrive in what we do?
We have now expanded our sights, looking at how we integrate the Regenerative Design Principles of Holism, Nodal, Evolutionary, Developmental, Interdependence, and Uniqueness in to the operations of company. These Regenerative Design Principals are front-and-center in our Department Directors meetings, so that discussions and decisions are consciously filtered through them, so that we continuously remind ourselves that it is our number one role to create the conditions for others to thrive!
The Regenerative Framework is iterative and patience is need when working in a living system. The two "A-ha!" realizations for me in learning to view the world, and how we work in it, as a living system versus and mechanistic view is that: one, structure is a necessity; and two, that we create conditions for others to thrive, it cannot be forced.
JULIE JACKSON
Role: Co-founder/CEO, Taurio
Location: Denver, CO USA
Julie is a mindful leader, empathic tech advocate and startup jill-of-all-trades. Through her current role as co-founder/CEO of Taurio, an agTech startup empowering smallholder graziers to regenerate their communities from ecosystem to food system — one paddock at a time, she hopes to inspire a new generation of founders that prioritize holistic health and prosperity for their organizations, customers, environments and teams equally.
Holism + Nodal + Developmental (Health). As a founder of a public benefit corp, she refuses to prescribe to the burnout-ridden startup culture, 'rapid-growth at all costs' model or pressures to 'beat out the competition.' As true for most startups, she has big dreams and very little resources, so Rhythm’s living systems approach helped her identify the difference between work and health challenges to design a company culture that thrives and prospers when its people thrive and prosper, and a product that encourages network collaboration over competition.
Aside from the priceless cross-pollination of ideas with other incredibly inspiring changemakers, the Design Lab framework helped Julie cultivate a Q3 Strategy to increase Taurio's resources, unite her growing team and launch an MVP in a way that embraces nature's cycles, flows with ease and builds trust, resilience, community and momentum so that the company thrives alongside the farmers, investors and the environments it coexists with and within. The process shed light on the importance of 'relationship' and how each “whole” within the organization gives life to the next. Most importantly, it created space and a shared, nature-inspired language for open communication for when burnout inevitably crept in.
AGKILLAH MANIAM
Role: Perak State Project Coordinator (IC-CFS)
Location: Perak, Malaysia
Dr. Agkillah is responsible for the planning and implementation of a project aiming to improve the connectivity of the Central Forest Spine in Perak by working closely with the federal and state Forestry Departments, the Department of Wildlife and National Parks, the Forest Research Institute of Malaysia, various non-governmental organizations, and other relevant stakeholders.
Dr. Agkillah completed a Ph.D. in Politics and International Relations at the University of Auckland, where she looked into public policy on the management of the Central Forest Spine in Peninsular Malaysia, a hotbed for land conversion for plantations and infrastructure development, poaching, and other activities. In her research, she explored the characteristics of monarchs, federalism, and state implementers and their influence on policy implementation for conservation.
Dr. Agkillah also holds a Master’s in Public Administration and a Bachelor's in Forestry Science, and have worked on various social and environmental projects across public, private, and not-for-profit organizations locally and overseas. Dr. Agkillah firmly believes that policies must be led by factual research and science, and environmental issues can only be overcome through a multi-disciplinary approach.
As the Perak State Project Coordinator working on implementing the Central Forest Spine (CFS) initiative, I've only come to realise more of the need to apply the Regenerative Design Principles (RDP) in the Malaysia institutional landscape. I believe political changes in the recent years represents Malaysia in its shifting space, and there has been a lot of discourse about more 'change' in line with the upcoming elections in 2022 or 2023. In learning the RDP, I have come to incorporate some of these elements into the way I plan and work to deliver programs and projects related to the CFS. Among the 6 guiding principles under the RDP, there are two that is close to my heart and resonates much stronger with the work I undertake. The first is ‘Developmental’ where I truly believe the increasing growth, ability, and capability of all implementing stakeholders must be recognised, acknowledged and and taken into account when planning or strategizing for implementation. The second principle is ‘Interdependence’ where the complexity of the relationships that between the various stakeholders must be considered in planning the implementation of CFS as well as in ensuring the implementation strategies are not applied in silos but is rather weaved into their scope of work.
Learning on the philosophical approach of the Regenerative Design Principles!
NATALIE F. MASTERS
Role: Insatiable Learner | Iterative Systems Design Thinker | Lover of Life | Director of Learning Strategy & Design at Advancing Eco Agriculture
Location: Marietta, GA, USA
I serve learning & development efforts at Advancing Eco Agriculture (AEA), a recognized leader in regenerative agriculture founded by John Kempf in 2006. As an educator for the last 27 years, I am deeply passionate about empowering organizations and teams by engaging in agile work practices and iterative design thinking to co-create an abundant, regenerative future for all. I get really excited about the human brain, learning & motivation, and activating the unique potential in each of us. I also hold tremendous love and respect for trees, and I spend time with forests whenever possible. Reach me at nmasters@advancingecoag.com
AEA helps growers on millions of acres build resilience, profitability, and a living legacy through regenerative agricultural practices. Internally, AEA is growing as a regenerative organization. We are a dynamic, living system whose health is generated by the health of each member, whose abundance is generated by the interdependent contributions of our team, our grower community, and our partnerships. We are designing our ways of working and being in the world to empower our team members to openly share knowledge, to energize vital relationships, and to bring new life to agri-culture
Since I began the Fellowship journey in early 2022, I have been gifted with incredible, meaningful connections with other regenerators whose insights and approaches have deeply influenced my own work. About mid-year, I was able to connect concepts across industries, from learner-centered curriculum design, to agile business practices, to regenerative organizational design principles, and I realized that I have *always* been a regenerator, focusing my decades of work in education on strengthening connections, empowering others with actionable knowledge, and approaching all things with the lightness of curiosity. The nRhythm Fellowship has given me new tools to understand and pursue my life's true purpose - to collect, connect, and articulate meaningful ways of thinking, working, and being in the world that inspire others to heal our relationship with ourselves and with our planet, and to regenerate our beautiful, living world.
NICOLE NEGOWETTI
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MARTRA PITARCH
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DIANNE REGISFORD
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DIEGO REY SUN HAN
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MARSHALL ROMERO
Role: Business and Alternative Economics Developer
Location: Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina
Greetings all,
I am grateful to be here to co-create a community of change makers with you. My passion and interests are in learning and developing means of regenerative business models and alternative economic plans to meet the needs of our century.
The regenerative design principles have impacted my work concerning my current focus on bioregional scale and natural capitals. They are principles that I have used for guidance within my relationships to the diverse stakeholders I work with.
An AHA moment was realizing the community of change makers that I am a part of. Listening, engaging and growing with our Fellowship members has given a strong sense of community in our individual and collective goals.
ELYSSA MARIE SERRILLI
Role: Catalyst, Rabble Rouser, Sherperdess, Dreamer
Location: Shutesbury, MA and Messina, Sicily
Amma Maria beelieves that all humans share the same Heart, all Life shares the same Water, and that Planet Earth is one precious home. As a third generation Italo-Americana who grew up in NJ, she has traveled the coasts of Turtle Island living, learning and “working” with people and their place. Right now she’s excited about getting small-scale biogas going in Massachusetts, applying indigenous wisdom (and “permaculture design”) to internet-based communication platforms, and drumming.
I use nRhythm’s regenerative design framework and conversations in the nRhythm community as a practicum for codeswitching from radical rootsy communities to the business community.
I did not expect for some of the customs and practices from work in community development and education to be so readily woven into the 2022 Fellowship and Desigb labs. I am grateful that the nRhythm team was open to this cultural cross-pollination.
MIAH SHULL OLMSTED
Role: Founding Member, Zebras Unite Co-op | ED, Impact Arts Canada
Location: British Columbia, Canada
I am a mother, a grandmother, a social entrepreneur, a regenerative finance investor, a passionate gardener, marine educator, and an ocean protector who works through a community-engaged participatory creative praxis. Currently I am privileged to live in the unceded lands that have been cared for by multiple Coastal Salish Speaking People since time immemorial. In English we call this region the Pacific Northwestern section of Turtle Island - that space that includes both the Canada and the US. So, whilst I work to be a good member of complex set of intersectional and interrelated communities with more questions than answers, I am proud to be building trust with all of my relations to address many so-called “wicked problems” in reciprocal and mutually respectful collaborations with others.
I combine 40 years of participatory citizen science field research with nature-based creative research in Visual Arts, Art History, and Visual Culture. Braiding climate justice and community-engaged advocacy work into a social enterprise career requires weaving together networks and intersectional relationships. I have learned that much of this kind of work is activated by operationalizing Regenerative Design Principles. These create opportunities for trust to develop so that as an entrepreneur and investor, I can prioritize equitable and sustainable corporate governance practices and subsequently use the art of visually immersive, data-informed storytelling to amplify both unique and fiercely mutualistic best practices from around the world. Including multiple geographies, traditions, and cultural norms while working with and for the communities I serve, my practice breaks down many historic siloes that historically have separated technical, artistic, and research-based non-profit and for-profit social enterprise changemakers.
I love this community as it constantly reminds me that healthy leadership is a state of mind - a learning attitude rather than a fixed agenda or a specific outcome in working with reciprocal, trusting, relationship-focused partnerships.
SHANT SIYAHIAN
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JOSE TORCAL
Role: Civil engineer working in regeneration, sustainability and public space through water.
Location: Tepoztlán, México- Toronto, Canada
I am a civil engineer with over ten years working across six countries in regeneration, sustainability and public space through water.
My projects and interventions address climate change and improve our neighbourhoods, starting from the community. I have a strong commitment to collaborate across sectors and organizations to support the global movement towards sustainable communities.
I am currently working on projects in Canada, Mexico and Spain that use water as the tool to regenerate relationships between people, their communities and the land. In Canada, I am the manager of RAINscapeTO, an eco-landscaping social enterprise that provides meaningful and well-paid employment to Indigenous youth in Toronto. In Mexico and Spain, I collaborate with local organizations that co-design and implement water management projects in rural communities that involve rainwater harvesting and bottom-up water governance.
I regularly share my thoughts in a newsletter called Nothing to declare.
I want to nurture and celebrate a culture that reconnects us with the ecosystems we depend on and belong to. I want everybody to experience the joy of being nature, immersed in the complexity and abundance of our planet. From seeing it as the backdrop of our daily lives, to the center of our existence. I believe that water, as one of the key elements to sustain life, has the potential to bring people together. Everybody needs it and can relate to it. And everybody can appreciate why it is so urgent to take action to regenerate the relationships and ecosystems on which water depends. From rainwater harvesting in rural Mexico, raingardens with native plants in backyards across Toronto, to regenerative agriculture in acequia-fed abandoned lands in rural Spain, water unites us all.
I never even considered that it was possible to start an organization or project by first defining and creating the conditions for personal and community abundance of the people involved in the initiative.
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